Khuddaka Nikaya - Nettippakarana - First Grouping - Illustrative Quotations 1

Khuddaka Nikaya - Nettippakarana ( The Guide ) - First Grouping - Illustrative Quotations 1

ACCORDING TO
KACCANA THERA

TRANSLATED FROM THE PALI BY
BHIKKHU NANAMOLI
Pali Text Society
[First Grouping—Illustrative Quotations]
[i]
766. Herein, what is the type of Thread Dealing with Corruption ?
(Caught in the net of sensual murk,
And blocked by craving's bondage,
[129] Fenced in by fences of neglect
Like fishes in a funnel-trap,
They follow after ageing and death
As does the sucking-calf its mother ) (§198; Pe 24).
This is the type of Thread dealing with corruption.
767. K'Bhikkhus, there are these four goings on a bad way. What
four ? One goes a bad way through will, another goes a bad way through
hate, another goes a bad way through fear, another goes a bad way
through delusion.
9
So the Blessed One said. The Sublime One having
said this, he, the Master, said further:
'When man strays from the True Idea
Through will, hate, fear, or through delusion,
His good fame wanes away, he finds,
As in its dark half does the moon)' (cf. Pe 48, 64; A. ii, 18).
This is the type of Thread dealing with corruption.
768. (Ideas are heralded! by mind,
Mind heads them, and they are mind-made.
If someone with corrupted mind
Is wont to speak or act, then pain
the whole range of the Buddha's Utterance by means of classified quotations,
setting it out as a 'pattern' from which, by subsuming it all under the '18
Root-Terms' (see §§4, 759 and 964) it is intended that the Guide-Lines can
be 'moulded' (see also n. 759/1).
765/1 See Pe 10, line 3.
768/1 Pubbangama as adj . means 'preceded by' . In Pali the illustration
given is that of a king preceding his army. 'Herald' is compendious.

Sure follows after him as does
The wheel the harnessed [ox's] hoof) (Dh. 1; cf. §787).
This is the type of Thread dealing with corruption.
769. (A dullard, drowsy with much gluttony,
Engrossed in sleep, who wallows as he lies
Like a great porker stuffed with fatting food,
Comes ever and again back to the womb) (§190).
This is the type of Thread dealing with corruption.
770. (As the rust-stain that grows out of the iron
Devours the iron wherefrom it takes its growth,
So too are led habitual transgressors
By their own acts to evil destinations) (Pe 8, 49; Dh. 240).
This is the type of Thread dealing with corruption.
771. [130] (Just as a robber taken in house-breaking
Is haunted by and responsible for his act,
So too a man hereafter, when departed,
Is haunted by and responsible for his act) (§188).
This is the type of Thread dealing with conuption.
772. (One with the rod maltreating cruelly
Beings that desire but pleasure,
When he too his own pleasure seeks
Departing hence, he finds it not) (Ud. 12; Dh. 131; cf. §789).
This is the type of Thread dealing with corruption.
773. (When cattle go across a ford
And the bull leader goes astray
Then all the others go astray
Because the guide has gone astray.
So too it is among mankind:
If the appointed ruler acts
Contrary to the True Idea,
How much more all the other folk;
The whole realm suffers when its king
Acts counter to the True Idea) (A. ii, 75ff.; cf. §790).
This is the type of Thread dealing with corruption.

774. (Fine work indeed have men, who evil do
Through lusting for essentials of existence
Then crowd into the Unremitting Hell
To suffer there most fearful agonies /) ( ).
This is the type of Thread dealing with corruption.
775. (Fruiting kills ilie plantain tree
And kills the bamboo and the rush,
And honours kill unworthy men
As foaling does she-mules) (S. i, 154).
This is the type of Thread dealing with corruption.
776. (A bhikkhu given much to anger
And contempt through gain and honour
Grows in the True Idea no more
Than in good soil a rotten seed) ( ).
This is the type of Thread dealing with corruption.
777. ('Here, bhikkhus, with cognizance I penetrate some person's
cognizance by means of the Enlightened One's eye, and I understand
thus: According as this person is behaving, and according to the way
he is practising and the path he is taking, [131] were he to die on
this occasion, then as if carried [there], so [he would be] placed in hell.
1
Why is that ? His heart is corrupt. It is because of his heart's
corruption that here, on the dissolution of the body, after death, someone
reappears in a state of unease, in a bad destination, in perdition, in
hell.' This is the meaning the Blessed One stated. Herein, it is
stated as follows:
On recognizing here some person
Whose heart was brimming with corruption,
The Master did expound the meaning
In the bhikkhus' presence thus:
'Now should it happen that this person
Came to die at such a moment
He then would reappear in hell
Through the corruption of his heart;
777/1 This difficult and idiomatic phrase, which is repeated in a number
of Suttas, is probably best evidenced here by this verse-paraphrase. A
commentarial explanation is given at , e.g., MA. ii, 32.

For heart-corrupted creatures go
On to an evil destination.
As if he had been carried off
And placed [there], so a fool like this,
After the body's dissolution,
Reappears in HelV.
This was the meaning stated by the Blessed One, so I heard ) (cf. Iti.
12f.;cf. §795).
This is the type of Thread dealing with corruption.
778. ( Now if you are afraid of pain
And if you find pain disagreeable
Then do no sort of evil act
In public or in secrecy.
If you do or if you will do
An evil act, [no matter what,]
You will no safety find from pain,
Even by flight to future states ) (Pe 43, 44; S. i, 209).
This is the type of Thread dealing with corruption.
779. ( Whatever increment they get
Unlawfully, and what by lies,
Fools do conceive both to be 'mine';
Now how will that turn out to be ?
There will be troubles, and besides,
What has been gathered vanishes;
No heaven for them when they die:
Now are they not undone thereby ?) ( ).
This is the type of Thread dealing with corruption.
780. ( 'How does a man consume
1
himself ?
How does he come to lose his friends ?
How does he turn from2
the True Idea ?
How does he fail to go to heaven V
'Through greed a man consumes himself,
Through greed he comes to lose his friends,
780/1 'Khanati—to consume' : not in PED in this sense; cf. Vis. 145 and
527; NettiA ignores.
780/2 'Vivattate—turns from' : NettiA glosses with nivattati, not with vattati
as stated in PTS Netti Index (p. 280, note 1).

Through greed he turns from the True Idea,
Through greed he fails to go to heaven') ( ).
This is the type of Thread dealing with corruption.
781. ( When fools show their stupidity
They are their own selves' enemies;
For they do evil actions, which
Will bear an evil fruit.
[132] The act is not well done, for which
When done regret comes in its wake,
Whose ripening one undergoes
Mourning with tearful face ) (Dh. 66; /S. i, 57).
This is the type of Thread dealing with corruption.
782. (The unfit man the monk's state finds
Both hard to gain and hard to bear;
For many are the troubles there
Wherein a fool may come to grief ) (S. i, 7).
(For should a fool corrupt his mind
The while a Perfect One expounds
A meaning or an idea else,
Futile his life thereby becomes ) ( ).
('This pain I do indeed deserve, and worse besides, 0 venerable
sir; for I, not lust-free, hate did nurse at heart for Perfect Ones
immeasurable') ( ).
x
This is the type of Thread dealing with corruption.
783. (Who is there, then, that knows would think
To measure the immeasurable ?
I hold him dense, witless, who tries
To measure the immeasurable) (S. i, 149).
This is the type of Thread dealing with corruption.
784. (When once a man has come to birth
An axe is born inside his mouth,
Whereby the fool will cut himself
By uttering ill-spoken words ) (S. i, 149).
782/1 Perhaps this quotation should be verse, as printed in Bb.

(For never did well whetted blade
Or poison of kaldhala
So certainly undo a man
As can the ill-spoken word) (Ja. iii, 103).
This is the type of Thread dealing with corruption.
785. (Who the condemnable commends
Or the commendable condemns
Casts
1
by his mouth an unlucky throw,
A throw through whose means no bliss he finds.
Trifling the unlucky throw at dice
That gambles away the wealth of allt
Including oneself; far worse indeed
Is that unluckiest of throws
That steels the heart against Sublime Ones.
A hundred thousand and thirty-six
Nirabbudas, and five abbudas,
[Of years] in evil hellish states
[133] Reap men who Noble Ones revile
For so disposing their heart and speech) (Sn. 658-60).
This is the type of Thread dealing with corruption.
786. (When a man is devoted to service of greed
He is one who gives vent to the slander of others.
He is faithless, ignoble,
1
and cannot judge speech,
Avaricious as well and devoted to malice.
0 foul-mouth, 0 trickster, 0 ignoble fellow,
Destroyer and renegade, doer of evil,
0 miscreant, sinner, and son of the gutter,
Say little here now, you belong to the hells.
2
You have scattered pollution for [others'] misfortune,
785/1 l
Vicinati—casts': lit. to store up (misfortune as the 'unlucky throw') :
not in PED under letter v, though included there under kali (q.v.).
786/1 Here anariyo, but at Sn. 663 Jcadariyo; also avajdtakaputta here,
where Sn. 664 has avajdta. The passage Yo lobhagune . . . to . . . pesuniyam
anuyutto should be in verse as at Sn. 663.
786/2 'Hell' is used here to render niraya (for a commentarial gloss, see MA.
ii, 37). But in the Buddha's teaching, hell, Uke heaven and everything else
tha t arises, is impermanent , and no existence there is eternal (see M. Sutta
130). Also a being creates his own existence in hell as in heaven, doing so
by his acts, whose future results he creates for himself in acting, and he
cannot be consigned there by another. 'Sinner' (for kali) here is also only

You have censured the true and done hideous things;
Through all of the many misdeeds you have' done,
You are going for long to remain in the pit) (Sn. 663-5).
This is the type of Thread dealing with corruption.